Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Article
BSU's Entry into Second Life is Grounded in Emerging Media Expertise
An interview with John Fillwalk
3/26/2008
Ball State University's Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation is leveraging years of innovation in 3D animation and virtual applications to support the university's entry into Second Life. One of IDIAA's first academic projects in SL, The Aesthetic Camera, will draw on experts from art and technology to build a course in cinematography. CT interviewed IDIAA director John Fillwalk.
The Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation at Ball State has generous support and funding through the Lilly Endowment Inc., and for the past several years we've been working with a blend of faculty, experts both internal and external to campus, students of course -- both undergraduate and graduate, and staff in a variety of different projects. Our mission is hands-on, experiential, project-based learning environments for the students, so IDIAA is really a research and design lab that's exploring the intersections of art and technology.
Who is involved in your projects -- what types of expertise do they offer IDIAA and its projects?
Everything we do has an interdisciplinary approach, so we have artists including composers, animators, video artists, modelers, and graphic designers from our College of Fine Arts, as well as architects, telecommunication folks, and computer scientists from our six other colleges and outside partnerships, all working together. So our expertise at IDIAA to a large extent is about identifying the skills that we need to get certain things done.
How have you leveraged that expertise for Ball State's entry into Second Life?
A lot of what we are doing is looking at technology -- very disparate, separate technologies -- but looking toward the center space, where we can get them to communicate with each other and integrate. The thought -- as we’re trying to push emerging media around quite a bit -- is how can we get new technologies to work well with each other, to play well.
It takes a deep understanding of specific technologies, and a commitment to explore and test how they communicate -- in terms of the tech side.
On the art side, of course, the activity is exciting for us, because we help shape the conversation about how technology is integrated into the society, and how it can enhance what we do.
And one of your projects is a learning module in Second Life, called The Aesthetic Camera. Is that your initial academic offering in SL and a starting point for more to come?
Yes. There, we're dealing with distance ed concepts. In this case, it's teaching cinematography. All of the equipment has been virtualized and scripted. This means that the equipment has similar features of its real-world counterparts; all of the virtual equipment is controlled by a single HUD (heads-up-display) for consistency and ease of use.
But our hope is that through all of the models that we're building -- in terms of how one constructs a virtualized studio and laboratory experiences in an online multiuser universe -- through the instructional design aspect of it, we're hoping that [knowledge and expertise] can be applied to a host of other educational experiences, cross-discipline.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Gates Highlights R&D at CES08, Unveils Microsoft Touch Wall
Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates spent a lot of time Wednesday talking about "empowering the workers" at the Microsoft's 12th annual CEO Summit 2008 in Redmond, WA, where he gave a keynote speech. However, Gates wasn't talking about political revolutions or even pay raises for office workers before the CEO crowd. Instead, he was referring to new software technologies that can better enable collaboration, social networking and decision-making on the job.
- Vista Vulnerability Study Puts Microsoft on Defensive
Microsoft and some independent security researchers had the blogosphere buzzing Wednesday over a series of denunciations after one company claimed that the Vista operating system was more vulnerable to malware and other exploits than previous operating systems.
- New Blackboard Sync Application Leverages Facebook
Blackboard Inc. today announced Blackboard Sync, an application that allows students to receive course updates and communicate with classmates while logged on to Facebook.
- Standards: The Sooner the Better
Technology solutions work best when they well together. That is why the nonprofit group IMS Global Learning Consortium is developing learning tools interoperability standards for the education technology community...
- U.K. Education Group Escalates Microsoft Complaints
A consultancy to the U.K. government has forwarded complaints about Microsoft's licensing and interoperability practices to the European Commission (EC), according to an announcement issued by the Becta consulting group Monday.
- University Students and Researchers Enjoy JavaOne
The JavaOne conference, held May 6-9 in San Francisco, brought together developers from industry, education, and other markets, filling the Moscone Convention Center with a wide array of sessions and exhibits for the open source Java developer community.
